Abolish the senate?

without the United States Senate the guy in your spoiler would have no influence at all

 

or he might have had a career in pop music

 

It's treason, then.

 

that's not any more surprising really than seeing that article in the GARM about Hitler playing the drums

 

Why is this necessarily a good thing?

 

Preach playa.

 

take state populations in 2021:

What are the most populated states in the United States? Here is a list of the top ten most populated states in the country:

1. California (Population: 39,613,493)
2. Texas (Population: 29,730,311)
3. Florida (Population: 21,944,577)
4. New York (Population: 19,299,981)
5. Pennsylvania (Population: 12,804,123)
6. Illinois (Population: 12,569,321)
7. Ohio (Population: 11,714,618)
8. Georgia (Population: 10,830,007)
9. North Carolina (Population: 10,701,022)
10. Michigan (Population: 9,992,427)

And what about least populated? What are the least populated states in the United States? Here is a list of the top ten least populated states in the country:

1. Wyoming (Population: 581,075)
2. Vermont (Population: 623,251)
3. District of Columbia (Population: 714,153)
4. Alaska (Population: 724,357)
5. North Dakota (Population: 770,026)
6. South Dakota (Population: 896,581)
7. Delaware (Population: 990,334)
8. Rhode Island (Population: 1,061,509)
9. Montana (Population: 1,085,004)
10. Maine (Population: 1,354,522)

​

Rough back of the envelope arithmetic puts the populated states at approximately 180 million people and the least populated states/District of Columbia at approximately 8 million people.

With proportional Senate representation of say, one senator per million residents, the most populated states would get 180 senators, whereas six or seven of the least populated states wouldn't even get one Senator; only Rhode Island, Montana, and Maine would cross the million resident threshold. (For the sake of argument though let's say they each get one senator apiece.)

What such a system would do is basically just recreate a second House of Representatives. And good luck with getting the people and senators from Texas, say, to act fairly and justly in the best interests of the state of Alaska on any kind of consistent basis.

 

One person one vote... Glad we can abolish the Electoral College then.

 

welcome to the tyranny of the majority then

 

there are good reasons why the framers of the Constitution did not create a “pure” democracy

Ted Lowi used to say if you wanted pure democracy you’d put everyone’s name in a hat and pick your President by pulling out a name

 

something like that. look at the states listed above, over half the country's population is in ten states. The less-populated states would be very poor stepchildren without the leveling effects of how the Senate is structured.

try the thought experiment of designing a Senate/legislative body with representation apportioned according to acreage. how fair or just would that feel?

 

Congressional logjam is only a problem because how much power has been concentrated in the hands of the federal government, which the founders never intended. Checks and balance by design slow things down, so it never made sense for central government to wield so much power (and growing). It’s like a street designed with speed bumps to slow traffic, and then funneling more and more traffic through that same street. People then forget why speed bumps were there in the first place. Give fiscal powers back to the states, and that will solve a host of problems. Right now US is a socialist country when it comes to individual states, and that’s how shithole states like Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, etc. can continue to suck with impunity. I’d rather states tax 30% and federal government tax 10% than the other way around.

TL;DR: federal government is broken because it was never designed to handle so much traffic of money and power. Focus on common defense, diplomacy and interstate disputes, and watch it miraculously work far more efficiently as originally intended.